Podcast Interview: Student Developer from The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

Paul, a University of Southern California Game Design student, talks about developing The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pbwinterbottom-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pbwinterbottom-podcast.mp3

Check out the trailer…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDxX3AQHogk]

Show Notes…

0:00 – 5:00
Interesting game where you record a certain action and then it replays in the game.
Game based on playing with time…

Prototyped game in flash and kept prototyping to get enough to hold a team down.

Did other prototype other games while doing this one.

Also used paper prototyping.

Focused on System Mechanics…

Did test board game prototypes on a few team members and users…

5:00 – 10:00
The call to recruit more team-members…

Had a recruitment meeting and showed demo to recruit other folks.

Put up a flier all over campus. Put out an e-mail blast…and went to classes, etc.

Thirty people showed up to the meeting…

All of them were pretty much designers. But they were looking for engineers.

Let everyone stay…and the person that kept showing up week after week…those are the ones with
the passion.

Found a high schooler to help do the programming.

Visual design of the game is very unique…
One of the designers was also an artist

10:00 – 15:00
One challenge was listening to an Engineer professor about using a 3D engine instead of Flash…
so tried it for a month, but it wasn’t working after a month…so went back to flash…it was hard to change
to change back at the time, but it was a good decision.

At University of Southern California, the environment allows for innovation. Design on paper, etc.
Even though most folks in the game design program there are not programmers, try to collaborate with engineering school to
help with games.
2 things learned from game design school…
1) Prototype
2) Get the game out there

Future plans are to get the game out as a downloadable on one of the console games

Wants to be a producer.

Take care,
Action